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ASSIMILATION

dariTri Lintang

When words are pronounced separately, the sound is quite different than when words are pronounced together. Try pronouncing the following sentences to see a difference: Would you please pass the jelly? Did you finish your homework? You can notice how the voiced /d/ and the voiceless /y/ are connected in the pronunciation. This is called assimilation. Assimilation is used primarily in conversation. If you were to pronounce these words separately, as in a list, then put them in a sentence, you would notice a difference and the role that assimilation plays.

EXERCISES
Using the phonetic alphabet, rewrite the word according to the way that it sounds. 1. sign 2. bomb 3. door 4. girl 5. baby 6. bath 7. assure 8. cold 9. cheese 10. phone 11. look 12. buy Assimilation has a very precise meaning when its related to studies of languages. Is a common phonological process bye which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like another segment in a word. In other words its when a letter (sound) is influenced by the letter (sound) before or after it so that it changes its sound and/or spelling. The word assimilation it self its said to be assimilated; it is derived from the latin prefix ad- meaning to and simil- meaning like but, instead of being adsimilated, it has the easier pronunciation of assimilated. A common example of assimilation is dont be silly where the /n/ and /t/ are assimilated to /m/ by the following /b/, in many accents the natural sound is dombe silly. Assimilation can be synchronic being an active process in a language at a given point in time or diachronic being a historical sound change. There are 4 configurations found: the increase in phonetic similarity may be between adjacent segments or between segments separated by one or more intervening segments; the changes could be in reference to a preceding segment or a following one. Even when all four occur, it changes in regard to a following adjacent segment account for virtually all assimilatory changes. Assimilation to an adjacent segment are vastly more frequent than assimilation to a non-adjacent one. If a sound changes with reference to a following segment, it is called regressive assimilation, the changes with reference to a preceding segment are called progressive assimilation. A lot of people find these terms very confusing because they seem to mean the opposite of the intended meaning. To avoid the problem exist a variety of alternative terms. Regressive assimilation is also known as right to left, leading or reciprocal assimilation. Progressive assimilation is known as left to right or preservative, lagging or lag assimilation. Occasionally two sounds may influence one another in reciprocal assimilation. When such a change results in a single segment with some of the features of both components, it is known as coalescence or fusion. 1. / t / changes to / p / before / m / / b / or / p / 2. / d / changes to / b / before / m / / b / or / p / 3. / n / changes to / m / before / m / / b / or / p /

4. / t / changes to / k / before / k / or /g/ 5. / d / changes to / g / before / k / or / g / 6. / n / changes to // before / k / or / g / 7. / s / changes to / / before / / or / j / 8. / z / changes to / / before / / or / j / 9. // changes to / s / before / s / daribeatrix renita Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary). A common example of assimilation would be "don't be silly" where the /n/ and /t/ in "don't" are assimilated to /m/ and /p/ by the following /b/, where said naturally in many accents and discourse styles ("dombe silly"). Assimilation can be synchronic being an active process in a language at a given point in time or diachronic being a historical sound change. A related process is coarticulation where one segment influences another to produce an allophonic variation, such as vowels acquiring the feature nasal before nasal consonants when the velum opens prematurely or /b/ becoming labialised as in "boot". This article will describe both processes under the term, assimilation.

Concept
The physiological or psychological mechanisms of coarticulation are unknown, but we often loosely speak of a segment as "triggering" an assimilatory change in another segment. In assimilation, the phonological patterning of the language, discourse styles and accent are some of the factors contributing to changes observed. There are four configurations found in assimilations: the increase in phonetic similarity may be between adjacent segments, or between segments separated by one or more intervening segments; and the changes may be in reference to a preceding segment, or to a following one. Although all four occur, changes in regard to a following adjacent segment account for virtually all assimilatory changes (and most of the regular ones). Also, assimilations to an adjacent segment are vastly more frequent than assimilations to a non-adjacent one. (These radical asymmetries might contain hints about the mechanisms involved, but they are unobvious.) If a sound changes with reference to a following segment, it is traditionally called "regressive assimilation"; changes with reference to a preceding segment are traditionally called "progressive". Many find these terms confusing, as they seem to mean the opposite of the intended meaning. Accordingly, a variety of alternative terms have arisennot all of which avoid the problem of the traditional terms. Regressive assimilation is also known as right-to-left, leading, or anticipatory assimilation. Progressive assimilation is also known as left-to-right or perseveratory or preservative, lagging or lag assimilation. The terms anticipatory and lag will be used here. Very occasionally two sounds (invariably adjacent) may influence one another in reciprocal assimilation. When such a change results in a single segment with some of the features of both components, it is known as coalescence or fusion. Some authorities distinguish between partial and complete assimilation; that is, between assimilatory changes in which there remains some phonetic difference between the segments involved, and those in which all differences are obliterated. Tonal languages may exhibit tone assimilation (tonal umlaut, in effect), while sign languages also exhibit assimilation when the characteristics of neighbouring cheremes may be mixed.

Examples
[edit] Anticipatory assimilation to a contiguous segment

This is the most common type of assimilation by far, and typically has the character of a conditioned sound change, i.e., it applies to the whole lexicon. For example, in English, the place of articulation for nasal consonants assimilates to that of a following stop consonant (bank is pronounced [bk], handbag in rapid speech is pronounced [hmbg]). In Italian, voiceless stops assimilate to a following /t/: Latin okto "eight" > It. otto, Latin lectus "bed" > letto, suptus "under" > sotto.

[edit] Anticipatory assimilation at a distance


Rare, and usually merely an accident in the history of a specific word. Old French cercher "to search" /ser.ter/ > Modern Fr. chercher /.e/. However, the diverse and common assimilations known as umlaut, wherein the phonetics of a vowel are influenced by the phonetics of a vowel in a following syllable, are both commonplace and in the nature of sound laws. Such changes abound in the histories of Germanic Languages, Romanian, Old Irish, and many others. Examples: in the history of English, a back vowel becomes front if a high front vocoid (*i, , y) is in the following syllable: Proto-Germanic *msiz "mice" > Old English ms /mys/ > mice; PGmc *batizn- "better" > OE bettre; PGmc *ftiwiz "feet" > OE ft > feet. Contrariwise, Proto-Germanic *i and *u > e, o respectively before *a in the following syllable: PGmc *nistaz > OE nest. Another example of a regular change is the sibilant assimilation of Sanskrit, wherein if there were two different sibilants as the onset of successive syllables, a plain /s/ was always replaced by the palatal //: Proto-IndoEuropean *smeru- "beard" > Skt. maru-; *oso- "gray" > Skt. aa- "rabbit"; PIE *sweru"husband's mother' > Skt. var-.

[edit] Lag assimilation to a contiguous segment


Tolerably common, and often has the nature of a sound law. Proto-Indo-European *-ln- > -ll- in both Germanic and Italic. Thus *nis "hill" > PreLat. *kolnis > Lat. collis; > PGmc *hulniz, *hulliz > OE hyll /hyl/ > hill. The enclitic form of English is, shedding the vowel, becomes voiceless when adjacent to a word-final voiceless non-sibilant.

[edit] Lag assimilation at a distance


Rare, and usually sporadic (except when part of something bigger, as in the Skt. aa- example, above): Greek leirion > Lat. llium "lily". In vowel harmony, a vowel's phonetics is often influenced by that of a preceding vowel. Thus for example most Finnish case markers come in two flavors, with /a/ and // (written ) depending on whether the preceding vowel is back or front. However, it's a difficult question to know just where and how in the history of Finnish an actual assimilatory change took place. The distribution of pairs of endings in Finnish is just that, is not in any sense the operation of an assimilatory innovation (though probably the outbirth of such an innovation in the past).

[edit] Coalescence (fusion)


Proto-Italic *dw > Latin b, as in *dwis "twice" > Lat. bis. Proto-Celtic *sw shows up in Old Irish in initial position as s, thus *swesr "sister" > OIr siur */u/, *spenyo- > *swinea- > *swine "nipple" > sine. But when a vowel preceded, the *sw sequence becomes /f/: m fiur "my sister", b tri-fne "a cow with three teats". There is also the famous change in P-Celtic of kW -> p. Proto-Celtic also underwent the change gw -> b. Noun1.assimilation - the state of being assimilated; people of different backgrounds come to see themselves as part of a larger national family relationship - a state involving mutual dealings between people or parties or countries 2. assimilation - the social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another absorption Americanisation, Americanization - assimilation into American culture Anglicisation, Anglicization - the act of anglicizing; making English in appearance Europeanisation, Europeanization - assimilation into European culture

social process - a process involved in the formation of groups of persons Westernisation, Westernization - assimilation of Western culture; the social process of becoming familiar with or converting to the customs and practices of Western civilization 3.assimilation - the process of absorbing nutrients into the body after digestion absorption anabolism, constructive metabolism - the synthesis in living organisms of more complex substances (e.g., living tissue) from simpler ones together with the storage of energy malabsorption - abnormal absorption of nutrients from the digestive tract biological process, organic process - a process occurring in living organisms 4.assimilation - a linguistic process by which a sound becomes similar to an adjacent sound linguistic process - a process involved in human language 5.assimilation - the process of assimilating new ideas into an existing cognitive structure acculturation education - the gradual process of acquiring knowledge; "education is a preparation for life"; "a girl's education was less important than a boy's" 6.assimilation - in the theories of Jean Piaget: the application of a general schema to a particular instance definition: Assimilation refers to a process by which something becomes more and more similar to something else until it becomes totally absorbed and loses its own identity. In psychology, the term Assimilation is used in two contexts. First, in the context of cultural assimilation, in which someone from one culture assimilates into another so that they can no longer be told apart from the new culture. Assimilation is also a process described by the famous psychologist Jean Piaget who identified two cognitive processes (Assimilation and Accommodation) at work in the normal learning process of children. According to Piaget, when a child becomes aware of something new that it has never seen before it has two choices for making sense out of that thing. It can interpret that thing in terms of what it already knows (Assimilation), or it can learn a new way for making sense of that thing (Accommodation). Taken together, these two processes make up adaptation, or the child's ability to adapt to his or her environment.

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